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Uptake Denied

Sources at the State Capitol inform me that the Senate Sergeant at Arms office is denying press credentials to all partisan news outlets.

This most notably includes The Uptake, a left-leaning videoblog that, in the past session, had more press credentials than any other media outlet except the Pioneer Press.

UPDATE: The source reminds me that The Uptake – and any other news outlet – will have the same access to press conferences that they’ve always had, and will have the same access to one-time daily credentials they’ve always had. They will, however, not have regular access to the Senate floor during the session.

Wow. The MNGOP is throwing organizations it doesn’t like out of the Capitol? That’s horrible. #stribpol

I’ll hasten to remind Jeff that all partisan news outlets have been denied credentials to the floor.

All of them. Not just “organizations it doesn’t like”, although that’s the sort of conclusion most of us expect leftybloggers to leap to in coming days.

This is as opposed to the last (DFL-controlled) session, when The Uptake was granted credentials, but Dan Ochsner of St. Cloud conservative station KNSI was denied credentials, purely (say my sources) because of his ideology (and the fact that he’d run for Senate against Tarryl Clark).

As one of Ox’s friends, I can confirm that your information is right. I can also report that, after he’d been denied his credentials, he was directed by our friend Michael Brodkorb to then Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem’s office, where he did his show that am.